ROLE OF THE TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR SOX9 IN THE TUMORIGENESIS OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS NEOPLASMS

The first section of the thesis gives a brief overview of the literature about the transcriptor factor Sox9, focusing the attention on its main functions during developmental processes and in acquired deseases. The second section, after a short introduction on Sox9 in Veterinary Medicine, is concerned with the assessment of Sox9 immunohistochemical staining in normal tissues of various animal species, in order to validate this marker in domestic animals. The other sections present the findings of the research, with six original research studies concerning Sox9 immunohistochemical expression in several groups of neoplasms. To better explain Sox9 role in nervous tissue development and in its neoplastic lesions they are treated together with Sox10 in the last work. The table of contents is here reported: The SOX family: Sox9 Sox9 in tissues Sox9 in acquired diseases SOX9 in veterinary medicine: Sox9 in normal tissues of various animal species SOX9 in the skin and hair follicle: Sox9 in canine epithelial skin tumors SOX9 in male gonad : Immunohistochemical expression of Sox9 protein in immature, mature, and neoplastic canine Sertoli cells SOX9 in mammary gland neoplasms: Sox9 expression in feline mammary hypertrophy Sox9 expression in feline mammary carcinomas Sox9 expression in canine mammary neoplasms Sox9 in nervous tissue and neoplasms: Immunohistochemical panel evaluation for differential diagnosis of horse spindle cells tumors.